HELP!!! 12 AWG wire goes to which terminal???

[nellis8166]

This is my last question for a while, I swear. After thinking about it, and several suggestions, I decided to go the budget route in bi-wiring my LSI9s and LSIC. A trip to home depot and radio shack and I am ready to go.
I am going to use 12AWG for the lows and 16AWG for the highs. My question is how do I know which terminals the 12AWG wire goes to and vice versa??? Does the 12AWG go with a specific color and vice versa.
Again, thanks to eveyone for all the help. I'll post something tomorrow to let everyone know my results.

Nat

[MxStYlEpOlKmAn]

if your using hd wire - 12 guage is silver and copper? silver go to red's....copper go to black, 16 guage - white line goes to black, no line goes to red

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[gidrah]

I could be wrong, but I believe the "silver" wire is actually tinned copper and would use this for the negative side.

[nellis8166]

i went with sid's suggestion and wired everything accordingly. sounds great, not really sure who is right on this one. not sure that it really makes a difference either as long as everything is wired the same way.
nat

[scottvamp]

In cheap wire there is a reason one is "silver"(not silver but just some type of cheap metal) and the other is copper. Copper is more conductive and therefor is used as the positive.
U had a 50/50 chance one this one Mx. Better "guessing" next time.

[TonyPTX]

I always thought that they keep the two lines different colors intentionally because it's cheaper to manufacture that way rather than having to mark one side of the jacket with a white stripe. No arguement about copper being more conductive, but the "cheaper metal" wire may be aluminum which is no slouch when it comes to conductivity either...

[scottvamp]

The aluminum is much cheaper than the copper and that is the reason why it manufactured that way. Not to mention the copper is low grade in these wires so both will quickly oxidize. Even so it is more conductive and the positive carrys more electrical (meaningful) current than the negative.